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I was just today discussing with my cousin that the main reason we have so much violence in video games seems to be that a system based on violence apparently is much easier to code than one on social interaction

That is actually very interesting thought and bears further examination. *goes and thinks about stuff*

Downloaded Miasmata, a Steam Greenlighted project, but can't get it to run above a crawl on my PC; I guess a new gaming laptop is in order.

Man, the Artorias of the Abyss DLC for Dark Souls is just full of assholes. Finally beat the Sanctuary Guardian yesterday, and am now getting pummelled by Artorias himself.

Went back to Far Cry 3 to give it a go; haven't done much but hopefully there is a decent game under the nonsense - so far I have unlocked all the radio towers on the north island, and gone hunting deer with a silenced pistol and an assault rifle so that I could upgrade my holster to three slots (sniper rifle will be handy as it seems there is a heavy emphasis on stealth).

Can't wait to get my grubby hands on Far Cry 3. I'm hoping the enemy spawning system is fixed, but haven't been able to confirm it through research. It hasn't been a complaint in reviews I've read, which is surely a good sign.

Still playing Hitman religiously each day after work. Not so much for it's quality, but I want to sell it before it's value depreciates too much, so I can rebuy Blood Money. I wish 47 existed for reals, so I could order a hit on myself to end this torment. According to the in-game logic, I wouldn't know he was coming, if he avoided stealing one of my Judas Priest shirts to disguise himself with, and just squeezed into one of my woman's dresses instead. Painful, painful, painful. And I haven't gone back on my promise to not comment on this game again until completion, because I didn't put the title of the game in bold lettering in this post. That's how it works guys, get over it. (seriously, don't buy this game.)

Thera are no checkpoints at all in FC3, you'll be glad to hear. There are lots of dudes tooling around in jeeps, but these are a minor annoyance. Once you liberate their outpost in that area, they disappear for good. The outposts don't prevent travel, ie they aren't built in the middle of the road, so are optional too.

12/18 civilians saved? Impressive, I really struggled in those missions; I rarely saved more than six.

Generally a bunch of Chrysalids dropped and started murderising everyone faster than I could cope with.

I tried to play these missions 'safe', and the result was always alot of dead civilians... so then I started looking at them missions from the P.O.V. of hauling ass, sending the squaddies in like linebackers to tag the survivors. The crysallids are bad news, but they can't stand a close scatter laser shot.

Terror missions would usually go two different ways: either the X-rays would zergrush me, so that I only ever see the starting area of the map, or I needed to run & gun to prevent a zombie outbreak.

When Cryssalids attack I noticed it's more effective to have something resembling line infantry like in Napoleonic times rather than staying in cover. Of course, that doesn't work if anything else is around with grenades, like a Sectopod, Mutons, Floaters or a Cyberdisk. So keep them together while spreading them out. Sounds easy, right?

My new laptop arrived yesterday, so I have been playing a little bit of Miasmata (slow but intriguing so far) and took the opportunity to download the demo of Shogun 2, which I couldn't play on my old machine. It looks decent, I'm torn between paying 29.99 for it now, or waiting for an Xmas sale. I might just get it...

Lately I've been spending my time with Far Cry 3 and Planetside 2. I haven't been playing shooters regularly for a long time, but lately I seem to have played nothing else. You tend to grow tired of regenerating health and aiming-down-the-barrel mechanics though, so I've also been replaying Final Fantasy VI.

It's pretty interesting, and not what I was expecting, although this being my first campaign, I'm just going down the 'conquer everything' path. This isn't really by choice, but I keep coming up against neighbours with very few troops...what's a Daimyo to do?

The easy conquest game to a halt a little while ago when my rich neighbour declared war, but he moved against my strongest city. Still, it was a close run thing (reload) and almost drove me to bankruptcy.

I am trying to consolidate now, and make my holdings richer (and stamp out Christianity). Luckily I am on good terms with everyone except the guys in red, who hate me for some reason, but they are a good distance away right now.

Shogun 2 continues. I have now taken over all of that island, but am prevented from further expansion by dissent at home. Unfortunately the entire northern half of the island was Christian, and it's a full time job keeping the cities from revolt as my state religion is Shinto-Buddhism.

I haven't even been able to burn down the aforementioned church, as the city it is in remains in such a parlous state, and the worst thing is I haven't been able to levy any taxes on these regions, for fear of pushing them into open rebellion.

So, while the clans to the east have been keeping each other busy (and worryingly, expanding), I have embarked on a program of temple building, which will slowly convert the Christians. Then I will be able to maintain minimal garrisons, levy taxes, and build my war machine.

The game itself is good - although it is grand strategy, I don't see that there are a lot of paths you can take - trade is there, and cultural influence is there, but at the end of the day you have to raise a large force and take other provinces. I have only scratched the surface so far, and haven't really been threatened yet though.